N WATERSKEIDING VIR DIE REGTE VAN BELASTINGBETALERS

As elke belastingbetaler in Suid-Afrika R20 per jaar, of R100 vooruit vir vyf
jaar, tot hierdie kernsaak bydra, dan sou dit genoeg wees om die beste
regsverteenwoordiging te verseker. Dit sal die beste belegging wees wat
enige belastingbetaler ooit kan maak want dit kan die toekomstige
wangebruik van belastingbetalersgeld deur plaaslike owerhede aanspreek.
Enige individu, organisasie of burgerlike entiteit wat graag die NBU wil
ondersteun, moet asseblief kontak maak met hul plaaslike
belastingbetalersvereniging wat op hulle beurt weer kontak kan maak met
mnr Jaap Kelder, voorsitter van die NBUby info@zanli.co.za
Enigiemand wat direkte bydraes tot die NBU wil maak, kan hul skenkings
deponeer in die bankrekening van die NBU: Eerste Nasionale Bank,
Rekeningnommer 6211 203 4921, tesame met hulle naam en dorp as
verwysing.
Media Release issued by the National Tax-payers Union
April 28 th 2009
A WATERSHED FOR THE RIGHTS OF RATEPAYERS
It is a well-known fact that service delivery is close to collapse in most
municipal districts in South Africa. It has also been believed that there is little
or nothing that the ordinary ratepayer or taxpayer can do about this. This is
about to change..
Over the last few years, twenty one towns have embarked on a proactive
action where they have paid their municipal rates into a trust account
. Another 230 towns are in the process of implementing the same action.
The withholding of the monies was done under the common law principle of “
contractus non adempleti “ ie. where one party to a contract does not
perform the other party does also not need to perform while the undertaking
of the services by the residents themselves was done under the common law
principle of “negotiorum gestio” where, when the owner of a property does
not maintain a property, the tenant ( residents) can maintain the property and
recover the costs from the owner
However, these actions are about to be put to the test. The North-
West Province town of Sannieshof, where services collapsed completely two
years ago, declared a formal dispute with their council in November 2007,
notified the municipalitythat certain residents would be paying their rates into
a trust account, and in accordance with the dispute, waited on the
municipality to rectify matters. When the municipality after a given time
period failed to respond, the tax payers started implementing the services
themselves by utilizing the withheld funds.
The guiding force behind this dispute and protest action has been the
National Taxpayers Union (NTU). The success story of Sannieshof – where
the town services function appreciably better than they did under municipal
supervision - has made the town the poster-child for civil action.
The municipal council of Sannieshof, instead of working towards improving
defective municipal services, has instead decided that it will take the matter
of municipal disputes to court. The ruling in this case will decide for once and
for all if pro-active action by ratepayers is legal under South African law. It
must be stressed that country wide citizen actions in withholding funds have